1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a data processing apparatus and, more specifically, relates to a data processing apparatus for processing asynchronous data such as in an asynchronous type data flow computer or the like.
2. Description of the Background Art
With a conventional synchronous type data processing system, the timing of data being entered necessary for processing can be predicted within its timing margin, which makes it easy to set the timing for referring to its data.
On the other hand, with a system for processing data entered in an asynchronous manner, the timing of data being entered cannot be predicted, which makes it necessary to hold the data in a latch or the like at a specified position in a waiting state, in order to refer to necessary data. Furthermore, with an asynchronous data processing system such as a data flow type computer, it is necessary to detect a pair of data meeting a given condition among the data transferred within the system in an asynchronous and parallel manner and, to that end, conventionally a system was employed for transmitting data in the directions opposite to each other on the respective data transmission paths and for comparing all the data being transferred.
Such an asynchronous type data processing system keeps its data in a waiting state involves a problem in that the processing of data is stopped during the waiting period and hence the overall processing performance of the system is decreased. On the other hand, in case of a system for comparing all the data being opposite to each other, it could happen that transmission of data is disturbed where a plurality of data are to be referred to simultaneously, resulting in the problem of decreasing the processing performance of the whole system.